Occupy Your Street

Occupy Wall Street has been going on for nearly a month. Thousands of mostly New Age hippies are protesting for what they know not. Many of their assertions are correct, in that there’s too much of an alliance between Wall-Street and K Street but there are two major problems with the movement.

The group doesn’t understand that government policy, through regulation, played a large role in the failure of the largest corporations. For the bank failure one needs to look no further than the Community Reinvestment Act and the role that Freddie and Fannie played in providing the banks a place to sell their high risk loans. So, in a sense, the government forced banks to make high risk loans and when those loans failed, the government had a fiduciary responsibility to participate in the loss. A large part of many bank’s bad business was forced upon them by the government. Most banks did not voluntarily make zero money down loans to people with incomes too small to support the payment.

The same holds true, to some degree, for General Motors. The CAFÉ standards dictate a minimum MPG for all auto manufacturers. And GM, being the oldest and biggest has the greatest challenge in meeting the CAFÉ standards, particularly since GM sells best its large cars. Should car manufacturers be required to produce cars with reduced emissions? Yes, but at what cost and to what degree? And then there’s the right to work issue with which GM must deal.

The point is, the federal government has foisted a good deal of costs upon the major drivers of the American Economy. The above are just a couple of examples; there are more. The question is who is influencing whom? Does Wall Street influence K Street? And If so, why would Wall Street lobby for laws that make America less competitive? And if K Street rules, then why would they lobby for laws that cast America in a less than competitive position?

Who’s in charge? Who’s influencing whom? Are all bankers greedy? Are all lobbyists criminal? Are all Congressmen corrupt? Is government the problem or the solution?

These are tough questions, the resolution of which requires deep thought. I’ve yet to see a protestor that appears to be a deep thinker, maybe a deep inhaler, but deep thinking, I think not.

It has been said the all politics are local. So what could the occupiers do to help themselves and their local community? That brings me to the second point that the latte drinking, deep inhalers are missing.

Small business, not Wall Street, account for 75% of all new jobs. Small businesses employ the majority of all Americans. Small businesses create the majority of non-farm GDP in America. So, if they want to help America and create jobs they should occupy their hometown streets and shop local. When a $100 is spent at a locally owned business, $68 of that stays local. Rather than Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Your Street. Go to - www.independentwestand.org for more facts regarding locally owned business.